Sunday, 29 November 2015

What is Phrenology?

Phrenology
is a pseudoscience developed by a German physician named Franz Joseph Gall in
1796. Gall believed that through his studies and experiments he had found what
parts of the human brain corresponded with certain skillsets and personality traits,
and that these traits could be determined by the shape of ones cranium, which corresponded
with the shape of the brain. The traits in question were quite specific and
defined in a way that was aimed at figuring out every possible combination of
actions that a human could take. As shown on the charts at the top of the page there were
a multitude of these defined traits. This method became very popular in the UK
in the 19th century with the height of its popularity between 1810-1840. Gall
and a devoted follower named J. K. Spurzheim toured around Europe during 1805-1807
to give lectures about his method. When it was first introduced in the UK it
caught on and became steadily more and more popular. An English follower of Galls
methods named Thomas Foster was the one who named it Phrenology, or alternately
‘the science of the soul’. The word phren comes from Greek and translates to
mind, logos is also Greek and means knowledge. Altogether in Greek it
translates to something along the lines of ‘knowledge of the mind’.

‘Phrenology
is an exposition of the relation in which the faculties and impulses of the
mind stand to certain physical phenomena. That is, it gives an account of the
condition in which that portion of man’s body, without which his mind cannot
exhibit its powers, must always exist under each separate condition or mode of
mental activity. Phrenology also teaches what the distinct faculties of the
mind are; that is, it teaches by what means we gain a knowledge of the objects
in the external world, and by what means we are impelled to every variety of
action’ (Synopsis of Phrenology, 6)

This is the
definition of Phrenology from a synopsis of phrenology, and does describe well
what phrenology is. I shall now however try to describe, in the shortest way
possible, how phrenology worked. There developed a multitude of versions of Phrenology
during its popularity but just to have some rough guidelines I will here focus
on a particular Synopsis of Phrenology. Phrenology has been separated into three
branches in this synopsis, they are all closely connected and must all be understood
in unison. The first branch discusses the fact that there must be different
parts of the brain that control different things, different emotions. The brain
is then a collection of components, seamlessly coming together as a whole, much
like the human body. The health of the different components, and thus the size and
strength of them, depends on how much that component is utilized. This accounts
for the difference in head shape. This is reasonable thinking that makes sense,
but it is not based on facts. The second branch concerns figuring out what components
corresponds to what external action. This is a subject that was disagreed upon
by many phrenologists. The phrenologists had trouble deciding how many distinguished
mental organs made up the human brain, ranging from 27 to over 40. They also
had trouble placing them and deciding what external action the different
components related to. This disagreement may be part of the reason it was
discredited in 1840 as a scientifically correct method. The third branch in
this particular synopsis states that the health of the mind depends on the
health of the body. It is emphasised that mind and body are not the same thing,
but that a healthy mind is dependent on the health of the body. Therefore it
comes naturally that the health of ones body is of utmost importance.

At the
height of Phrenology’s popularity it was readily available in daily life. Pamphlets
on the subject could be attained on the streets and it was mentioned in quite a
bit of literature. Some of the literary pieces that show influences of
phrenology include Charlotte Bronte’s Jane
Eyre, Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the
beagle, Charles Dicken’s David
Copperfield and Great Expectations,
Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, and
a number of other works. Phrenology applied to daily life sometimes gave rather
comical results, such as the illustrations below.

These
comparisons are utterly comical to me. They must be massively exaggerated for I
have not seen anyone with a head shaped even remotely like any of these
illustrations. Admittedly I do not know how the Victorians heads were shaped,
but I should imagine it was not so very different from the 21st
century.

Even though
phrenology was popular among the masses, it was mostly used by people with no
medical training. It was a scientific way of reading people characters that
people found intriguing, even though they may not have understood exactly how
it worked. People may have used it as a way to seem smarter than they actually
were, to seem more sophisticated than their social status may allow. The
material was readily available to the public, anyone could learn and perform a
phrenology reading. The fact that it was non-intrusive on the body of the
subject of examination, was probably a factor in making the method so popular.
You did not need to be a doctor to do it. However on the other side it was criticised
and mocked by medical experts. The method had no medical proof and was seen as
a speculative and unreliable method by the medical community. Phrenology is now
considered a defunct field of study, or a pseudoscience. Even though it was
discarded, phrenology was an important precursor to modern neuroscience and was
very influential in the development of 19th century psychiatry.

Phrenology
in itself is a subject that has had a wide coverage in modern times. The interest
in phrenology has been substantial even after it was discredited. The simple
fact that people once studied and believed in these theories is enough to keep
an interest in the subject, if only to understand the mind-set of Victorians. There
are now all sorts of material available on the subject, including books,
articles, and documentaries. Even a quick YouTube search will warrant results that
can give a basic understanding of Phrenology, such as this clip

The
Phrenology head charts have been freely adapted in later times. The new
adaptions have nothing to do with the original theory of Phrenology, the art work
is simply based on, and bear a striking resemblance to the phrenology charts,
but with a new twist. They have been modernised and taken into the current
culture, with results such as the pictures below.

3 comments:

This is a really interesting topic! I've never heard of phrenology before but after reading this I believe I have some understanding of it. This was well written and concise! I really appreciated the picture of Kanye West's mind. Very funny!

Hi Rebekka, I really enjoyed the way your blog is written. It's got a great balance between information and entertainment, and I particularly enjoyed your use of images. The modern-day phrenology diagrams are brilliant. I was fascinated by the fact that phrenology helped lay the foundations for neuroscience and psychiatry, as my blog touched upon these sciences also. What I noticed from my research, and what your blog highlights too, is how often the Victorians looked for physically apparent answers to mysterious ailments.

HiThank you both for your comments, it is really nice to get such a positive response! Phrenology was something I had not heard of before doing my research, but a topic I stumbled upon that intrigued me. Alastair, that is an excellent point, In this case it was taken to an extreme, and they tried to apply the qualities of the human body they understood to the brain, and not with great success I'm afraid.